4:35 p.m. Springfield Republican reporter saw and heard a funnel cloud pulling up trash and other debris on Liberty Street. It was coming over Interstate 91 and headed over the river. It spun around by the bus station and headed down Main Street to downtown.

4:51 p.m. Police believe the tornado touched down in the downtown section. With most of the from State Street to Mill Street power lines are on the vehicle.

5:01 p.m. There is an overturned car at Milton Bradley School in Springfield with people inside.

5:11 p.m. Wilbraham police are reporting multiple structures damaged. They are requesting mutual assistance from Bondsville.

5:15 p.m. Police are calling for all "all hands on deck" in Springfield.

5:20 p.m. Four poles are down on upper Tinkham Road. Police said the neighborhood is "just demolished."

5:25 p.m. There is a report of a tornado touchdown in Monson.

5:27 p.m. Brenda J. Gooch said she and coworkers saw the tornado forming over West Springfield from her perch on the 13th floor of First Financial Plaza overlooking Court Square where she works for Boston Medical.

"We were just transfixed by it. It was just huge; very dark. You could see debris and boards and everything flying through it,"

They saw it approaching. "It was just horrible," Gooch said. "It was like a freight train coming right at us. It was coming so fast."

5:30 p.m. In Brimfield, trees were downed along Route 20 and the Fire Department is weighing whether to close the roadway to traffic. Trees and other debris also blocked Hollow Road, and police closed Route 19 to traffic. One man traveling along Route 20 said the wind had picked his sport-utility vehicle off the ground and moved it across the road.

5:56 p.m. A spokesman from the Springfield Catholic Diocese said Cathedral High School was hit by the storm and sustained damage. Students were safe inside the building when the storm hit and blew out a number of windows. A planned event at the school is canceled.

5:59 p.m. Deputy Springfield Police Chief Robert Macfarlane said, “No one is going south of State Street or north of Central because of multiple building collapses and gas leaks.”

Police were ushering people out of the area. Dozens of vehicles were damaged in the parking lot of the First Spiritualist Church on Bliss Street in Springfield’s South End. Some had obvious structural damage; most vehicles have broken shattered windshields.

6:04 p.m. Frantic parents coming to the South End center, where part of the roof was gone, were directed to the MassMutual Center where people were being evacuated.

Sandra Blaney said she had just left work and was in her car on Bliss Street when she saw trees snap. “I just closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see what happened."

She felt the glass hit her as her windows blew out. When she opened her eyes, she saw the devastation. Blaney said She suffered minor cuts.

She said she was working in lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. “It reminded me of that horrible day.”

6:09 p.m. Jane Albert of Baystate Medical Center in Springfield said there are people coming in injured by the tornado. There are high velocity wounds caused by trees and other debris.

"We have the walking wounded coming in on their own and others being brought in by ambulance," she said.

There are serious injuries. Surgeons are there and have set up more trauma rooms. Patients may be transferred to other hospitals if Baystate gets overwhelmed.

6:36 p.m. A few dozen Minnechaug Regional High School students arrived at the MassMutual Center in Springfield at 6:30 p.m., late for their senior prom. Senior John Cushman, of Hampden, arrived in a limo with seven other students.

"A lot of the roads were closed in Wilbraham. We had to go down other streets because there were trees blocking the way."

6:54 p.m. MassMutal center is a scene of carefully-controlled chaos as frightened and homeless people streamed in after the touchdown. Many were shaken mothers with wailing children in tow.

"I just barely made it downstairs with my children before it hit. We all went into the basement and then the tornado tore a hole into the basement," said Jenny Torres, who lives at 96 Central St. with her boyfriend and three children before the storm destroyed it.

Torres said she left her dogs at an animal shelter and made her way on foot with her children, to the MassMutual Center where hundreds sought shelter early Wednesday.

The first to arrive at the center were a busload of young children from a Square One preschool downtown which was damaged by the storm.

7:03 p.m. Mary Orr of Mercy Medical Center in Springfield said so far 20 patients have come into the emergency room with injuries related to the tornado. The hospital has gone to disaster level, which means they are calling in extra staff.

7:32 p.m. West Springfield police are reporting one death.

[edited for length - to see complete list go to the original Masslive.com story]

The June 1st tornado had a lasting impression on many people, we talked with some of the areas first responders as well as people in the media and asked them to recall that day and how they reacted.

The June 1st tornado had a lasting impression on many people, we talked with some of the areas first responders as well as people in the media and asked them to recall that day and how they reacted.

Spring is trying – but struggling mightily – to take hold in the Brimfield State Forest along Dean Pond Road here.

A year ago, the devastating June 1 tornado seemed to take special aim at this forest, scraping from its graceful wooded hills nearly all the oaks and maples, the pines and cedars. What it left behind was something more resembling a lunar landscape or a battlefield after days of heavy artillery had finished with it.

So if there is greenery to be seen here now, it is mainly weeds, low shrubs and, occasionally, leaves that have managed to push out on mangled trees, some uprooted and lying on their sides.

Devastation of forests is a natural process in nature, but so, too, is the regeneration of forests, says David V. Bloniarz, a specialist in urban forestry at University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

“The forest will recover. It’s very resilient. This is no different than any other major disturbance,” he said recently.

On June 1, a series of tornadoes slammed the region, the largest of which carved a half-mile-wide, 39-mile-long path from West Springfield through Springfield and municipalities to its east, including Monson and Brimfield. The main path of the storm followed a track through Springfield’s South End, Six Corners, Old Hill, Upper Hill, East Forest Park and Sixteen Acres neighborhoods before continuing east.

In 1980, when volcanic activity blew the top off Mount St. Helens in Washington state, according to Bloniarz, 150 square miles of surrounding forests were completely leveled. Yet, those forests have made a strong recovery, he said.

“We’ve gone into some of the areas in the (Pioneer Valley) hilltowns that were hit by the 1998 ice storm, although the leveling wasn’t as extensive as in the tornado. It was more the canopy of the trees that was broken off. But those shade trees have recovered nicely,” he said.

“It takes 10 to 15 years to see a new forest regenerating in areas” that are entirely devastated, Bloniarz said. “A decade from now, you would be seeing trees 15 to 20 feet high, a new forest emerging.”

At the moment, though, the danger is wildfires in places like Brimfield. Tree trunks and branches cover the ground, and, if there is a lack of precipitation in the coming months, fires will be the result, he warned.

“We’re already seen some fires in Monson this spring. About 200 acres have burned,” Bloniarz said. “The first two years are the primary years where these areas are susceptible to wild fires. As successional growth comes up and shades the wood debris, keeping the moisture in them, that will reduce the chances of fire and allow microorganisms to take hold in the tree (to speed decomposition).”

It may take 30 to 50 years for the ground debris of wood to fully decompose if it is left in place, he added.

In rural areas, nature will be largely responsible for the growth of new trees, but in urban areas where the tornado hit, especially Springfield, programs are already underway to manually replace lost trees.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, 1,340 of the 3,340 “public” trees in Springfield that were damaged by the tornado were destroyed or had to be removed. When trees on private property are considered, perhaps as many as 13,000 trees in the city were damaged.

The devastation to the city’s trees in 2011 was not just due to the tornado, though, said Edward P. Casey, the city’s forester.

“Things were compounded by the October snowstorm. Because it was a city-wide event, the snowstorm actually caused more damage, and a lot of people are still struggling to clear the damage,” Casey said. “I’ve been with forestry now for 36 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Launched in October, a week before the Halloween Eve snowstorm hit, ReGreen Springfield was envisioned as a public and private partnership to repair or replace the trees damaged by the June tornado. It has since been expanded to take in damage of the October snowstorm.

Casey said that nearly 1,000 trees have so far been planted around the city, in parks and along streets, since the tornado, including at Forest Park Middle School, Johnny Appleseed Park and at former Camp Wilder.

And, as trees are replanted, diversity is the rule, he said. It is a lesson learned in the years when Dutch elm disease took out whole streets of trees that were unfortunate enough to be planted with what was once America’s favorite shade tree.

“In Springfield, they are trying to increase the palette of trees,” said Bloniarz. “No more than 10 percent of any one genus.”

“The theory is the right tree in the right place,” said Casey. “We have a high density of maples, around 40 percent, so we’re trying to introduce some new varieties.”

“They’ve already planted some dawn redwoods in Six Corners,” Bloniarz said. “Who would have planted dawn redwoods 10 year ago in Springfield?”